PODCAST · society
The Promise
by Nashville Public Radio
A Peabody Award-winning series from Nashville Public Radio about inequality and the people trying to rise above it, with host and reporter Meribah Knight. In Season 1 of The Promise, we told the story of Nashville's largest public housing complex, smack in the middle of a city on the rise. In Season 2, we explore how that divide reveals itself in the classroom. One neighborhood, two schools — one black and poor, the other white and well-off, and the kids stuck in the middle.
Episodes
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The Debt: What Tennessee Owes Its HBCU
In this one-hour special from WPLN and the Tennessee Lookout: What happens when government funding is withheld from a public university that's served generations of Black Tennesseans? And what could be possible if that debt were finally paid? Credits: This story was co-reported and co-produced by...
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Listen: The Country In Our Hearts
Episode 1 of WPLN’s new series “The Country In Our Hearts” is out now! We travel from a market in South Nashville to the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan to discover what happened on one terrible, pivotal day in 1988.
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WPLN News & NPR's Embedded present: "Supermajority"
Supermajority is a new podcast from NPR’s Embedded, in partnership with WPLN News, exploring what happens when one political party has near-complete control. In this four-episode series, hosted by Meribah Knight, we follow the story of three conservative women challenging their own party. As...
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Preview: "Making Noise" from WPLN and WNXP
"Making Noise" is a four-part series by WPLN and WNXP about how the music promotion company Lovenoise has changed the music landscape of Nashville. The best way to listen is to subscribe to the WNXP Podcasts feed.
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Bonus: How one police chief struggled to change the system
Karl Durr arrived in Rutherford County from Eugene, Oregon, in spring of 2016. He had been hired as the new police chief of Murfreesboro, the county’s largest city. As an outsider, there was a chance he would shake some things up. But less than two weeks after he started, while he was still...
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Dedicated Public Servants | The Kids of Rutherford County
The lawyers settle with the County, which agrees to pay the kids who were wrongfully arrested and illegally jailed; the hard part is getting the kids paid. Credits: “The Kids of Rutherford County” is a production of Serial, The New York Times, ProPublica and Nashville Public Radio. It was written...
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Bonus: Rutherford County is not alone. This youth detention center superintendent in Knoxville illegally locks kids alone in cells.
The Richard L. Bean Juvenile Service Center has been punishing kids with seclusion more than any other facility in Tennessee. And as the laws and rules on how to treat kids changed, the facility failed to keep up.
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Bonus: Behind the music of The Kids of Rutherford County
“Minimalist classic country with maximalist tendencies.” That’s one way to describe the musical scoring of The Kids of Rutherford County. In this bonus conversation, Nashville Public Radio’s Meribah Knight and Celia Gregory talk about the multi-instrumental composing work of The Blasting Company.
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Would You Like to Sue the Government? | The Kids of Rutherford County
Wes Clark reads a telling line in a police report about how Rutherford County’s juvenile justice system really works. He and his law partner Mark Downton realize they have a massive class action on their hands. Credits: “The Kids of Rutherford County” is a production of Serial, The New York…
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What the Hell Are You People Doing? | The Kids of Rutherford County
A young lawyer named Wes Clark can’t get the Rutherford County juvenile court to let his clients out of detention—even when the law says they shouldn’t have been held in the first place. He’s frustrated and demoralized, until he makes a friend. Credits: “The Kids of Rutherford County” is a...
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Bonus: Locked up and treated ‘like I’m a dog'
Quinterrius Frazier was 15 years old when he was arrested for aggravated robbery and held in the Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center. When staff said he was being disruptive — flashing gang signs and rapping, they claimed — he was placed in solitary confinement. It’s been almost seven…
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The Egregious Video | The Kids of Rutherford County
A police officer in Rutherford County, Tennessee, sees a video of little kids fighting, and decides to investigate. This leads to the arrest of 11 kids for watching the fight. The arrests do not go smoothly. Credits: “The Kids of Rutherford County” is a production of Serial, The New York Times,...
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Coming Soon: The Kids of Rutherford County
A juvenile court in Rutherford County was wrongly arresting and illegally jailing kids for more than a decade before a former juvenile delinquent-turned-lawyer came up with a plan to take it on. This four-part narrative podcast builds on a joint investigation by WPLN Nashville Public Radio and...
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Coming Soon: Behind The Blue Wall
In this series, we're going to tell you about what's been described as a toxic culture of misconduct and retaliation within the Metro Nashville Police Department. And the disciplinary system that has allowed that culture to thrive.
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The Final Exam
It’s February 2020, and Warner Elementary’s star is rising. It’s showing so much progress this year that it might be able to go from one of the lowest performing schools in Tennessee to one of the best. Now it’s just time to hunker down and work until the big state test at the end of the year.…
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The Recruitment Divide
There was a time when the decision of where to send your child to school was relatively simple: public or private. Now, in Nashville and many other cities, those choices have multiplied exponentially. In large part, it's because of white families — a way to keep them in the public system, but on...
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A Reckoning
Last fall, parents from Lockeland Elementary held a community meeting to talk about the elephant in the room: Despite the diversity of the neighborhood, their school was the whitest school in the entire district. Some white parents in the neighborhood simply didn’t see any problem. Others did and...
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Warner's Hope
Warner Elementary is about to take its moon shot. After landing on the state’s list of lowest-performing schools, it’s aiming to make the list of highest-performing schools. Finally, it has all the right tools: an infusion of federal grant money, an energetic and experienced principal, and new...
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What You Can't Unsee
When Willie Sims’ daughter started kindergarten at a high-performing elementary school in East Nashville, all seemed well at first. His daughter loved her teacher. She was making friends. But then Willie realized: In a neighborhood with tons of Black families, his daughter was the only Black…
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The Unraveling
After 43 years of courtroom battles, Nashville's landmark school desegregation lawsuit was settled. In the eyes of the law, the city finally made an honest effort to racially integrate its schools. But in truth, the matter was far from settled. For the Kelley family, whose son was the case's…
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The Nashville Way
To understand the resegregation of Nashville’s schools, you have to start with understanding desegregation. In 1954, the famous Brown v. Board decision ruled that segregated schools violated the constitution. But in reality, that decision changed very little in Nashville. Segregation was an...
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A Tale Of Two Schools
At the beginning of the 2019 school year, Principal Ricki Gibbs knew he had a tough job ahead. Warner Elementary in East Nashville had just landed on Tennessee’s list of lowest performing schools. It had lost so many students that it wasn’t even half full. Gibbs was the fourth principal in six...
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Season 2 Coming Soon
Season 2 of The Promise grapples with some of the most divisive topics in America: public education and race. This is a story about one school trying to stay afloat, a neighborhood divided over race and economics, and a city that’s resisted school desegregation every step of the way. Coming Aug.…
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Update: Letting Go
Ms. Vernell has another big decision to make: to stay in Cayce through the chaos of redevelopment, or to leave? Her conclusion reveals something about this long, messy process to overhaul Nashville’s public housing. What happens when residents get tired — tired of being told to keep waiting…
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Bonus 2: The Big Man Interview
If you've listened to The Promise, you no doubt remember Dexter Turner, aka Big Man. We met him in episode 2. The husband, father and community leader with a quick wit and a large personality had been planning a family barbecue, when a fatal shooting happened right in front of his apartment. In...
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Bonus
We return to the James Cayce Homes to follow up with residents amid the $600 million overhaul. But in checking back, we trip into some news. And we’re reminded, yet again, of how difficult it will be to pull off this massive redevelopment. As the city preps to turn its largest public housing...
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Part 6: The Future
Does this big idea to have low-income and higher income people living side-by-side really make a community better, safer, healthier? As The Promise comes to a close, we dig into the fundamental question driving this massive overhaul of Nashville’s public housing. The city’s housing agency is...
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Part 5: Get Some Gone
There is a saying in Nashville’s James Cayce Homes: “Get some gone.” Three simple words that describe the urge, the mission, to move out, to get away from the city’s oldest public housing project. Tonya Shannon grew up in Cayce. And she was determined to get out. So at 18 years old, she got some...
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Part 4: The Great Divide
This is a story about the assumptions we all make. And the secrets we keep. With WPLN reporter Meribah Knight as the go-between, Big Man, a public housing resident from the Cayce Homes, walks across the street to meet the wealthy couple who live in the fancy new home on the hill. In many ways,...
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Part 3: The People And The Police
The relationship between James Cayce residents and the Nashville police is a tenuous one. In this episode, we explore two defining moments in Cayce: A viral cell phone video of a police officer being assaulted, and the most controversial police shooting in the city’s recent history. Both were...
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Part 2: A Beautiful Day In The Projects
If you live in the Cayce Homes in Nashville, you know Dexter Turner. Not by Dexter, but by his nickname: Big Man. A husband, a father, a community leader, a showman — Big Man is a name everyone knows here. People love Big Man. And he loves his neighborhood just as much in return. But the chaos…
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Part 1: A Change is Gonna Come
At 61 years old, Vernell McHenry is like the grandmother of her corner of James Cayce. Where she’s lived for more than 17 years, greeting the neighborhood from a metal folding beach chair on her stoop. But Cayce is about the be transformed, torn down and rebuilt as mixed income apartments. And…
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Coming Soon: The Promise
Here's a preview of the new special six-part series from Nashville Public Radio, where we take you inside Nashville's oldest and largest public housing project.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
A Peabody Award-winning series from Nashville Public Radio about inequality and the people trying to rise above it, with host and reporter Meribah Knight. In Season 1 of The Promise, we told the story of Nashville's largest public housing complex, smack in the middle of a city on the rise. In Season 2, we explore how that divide reveals itself in the classroom. One neighborhood, two schools — one black and poor, the other white and well-off, and the kids stuck in the middle.
HOSTED BY
Nashville Public Radio
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Promise have?
The Promise currently has 33 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Promise about?
A Peabody Award-winning series from Nashville Public Radio about inequality and the people trying to rise above it, with host and reporter Meribah Knight. In Season 1 of The Promise, we told the story of Nashville's largest public housing complex, smack in the middle of a city on the rise. In...
How often does The Promise release new episodes?
The Promise has 33 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to The Promise?
You can listen to The Promise on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Promise?
The Promise is created and hosted by Nashville Public Radio.
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